Mini-history lesson is at the end of the chapter. I won't ramble on too much here as I have already delayed this chapter enough. Enjoy!


From the time she was young, Kagome had always felt privacy to be a rare and precious thing.

After all, there was so little of it to be found in her village. When she woke in the mornings there, it was to the soft, sleepy shufflings of her family all around her. When she went out into the village, be it to work alongside Kaede or to assist out in the fields, she was seldom alone. When she ate, it was always in the company of her family or Kaede or sometimes the entire village if there was a celebration of some sort going on. And when she slept once more it was always with the warm press of her family on all sides of her.

Even bathing was an activity one rarely performed on one's own in the village. In the infrequent instances when they had the luxury of a full soak-they were much more likely to opt for a quick rinse of their hands and arms and faces-they all knew that they would leave themselves far too vulnerable should they go down to the river alone. Thus they tended to coordinate these outings, women and children all choosing one day and men another.

Coming into the court, Kagome had been surprised at the amount of privacy that was suddenly so readily available to her. She slept alone, sometimes ate alone. At almost any moment on any given day she could remove herself, simply slip out into a garden or some infrequently used room to have a moment on her own. It was strange, an aspect of court life that she valued and was discomfited by by turns.

At some point, though, Kagome reflected, she must have grown accustomed to it because she sorely missed it now.

She held a sigh tightly in check behind her teeth, her smile fixed as her eyes swept over the circle of women around her. As always, their eyes were fixed upon her, parsing and measuring and missing nothing.

It had been a mere five days since the ceremony, a mere four days since the appointees had been moved into the Dairi, and Kagome had not known a moment of privacy since. When she woke, it was to one of the women ready to attend her in her preparations for the day. When she ate, it was in the company of the entire group. In the afternoons she would meet with the women in smaller groups in an effort to get to know them. And at night the cycle would start anew, another woman awaiting her at her residence to prepare her for bed and remain with her.

In the four days since the appointments had been moved in, Kagome had not been able to leave the Dairi even once. Her new duties to the women occupied her wholly, leaving her no time to assist Midoriko around the court or to continue the strolls as she wished to.

Her time with Inuyasha had been so impeded as to be nearly non-existent, a fact that bothered her far more than she cared to admit even to herself. Even though they were constantly in close proximity, both of them in the Dairi for almost the entirety of their days, they were scarcely able to speak two words to one another without several ears listening in.

She needed to move things along somehow. Something needed to shift. Only she had no idea what.

She bit back another sigh.


"Did you ever think about what your life would look like? Before all this, I mean."

Kagome jumped slightly, startled by the words despite how softly they had been spoken. She turned her head, careful not to move too quickly lest she tug at the hair that the woman behind her still held between her hands.

Her name was Nakatomi Katsumi. She was the eldest daughter of a minor clan that allied themselves with the Tachibana, but beyond that Kagome knew very little about her. The few times that she had been able to observe her among the other appointees, it was only to notice how reticent she was. She had never seen her speak without being spoken to first and she wore an air of practiced disinterest like a second skin, though her eyes were always sharp, always observing.

She was also incredibly beautiful. Though her hair was not quite so long as the style of the court usually dictated, it had the dark, liquid look of a starless night. Likewise were her eyes, so dark they almost appeared to be all pupil and framed by a fan of dark lashes. Her features were almost perfectly rounded and her skin snow-pale, the combination lending her face all the radiance of a luminous full moon.

Tonight was her night to serve as handmaid and, after a few abortive attempts at making conversation, Kagome had largely resigned herself to a night of silence in her company. She blinked, uncertain if the woman had actually spoken or if she had imagined it.

A faint frown edged Katsumi's lips, her gaze dropping back to the locks of hair and comb in her hands.

"Apologies," she said, voice scarcely rising above a whisper. "That was impertinent of me. I will attend to my duties, O-Miko-sama."

Kagome reached out, placing a hand over hers before she could. Katsumi glanced up at her through the fringe of her lashes, eyes rounding.

"You need not apologize," Kagome said quickly. "I was merely surprised. Please, be at your ease. You need not stand on ceremony with me."

Katsumi blinked, her expression still wary. Slowly she set down the comb, allowing Kagome's hair to slip from her fingers. She folded her hands together, unable to fully lift her gaze to meet Kagome's.

"I only...I only thought…" she said, her voice still so low that Kagome had to lean in to hear her. "That is, I wondered...what does life look like for us outside of the court? If you had never come here, how would you have lived?"

She glanced up, eyes wide with a kind of seeking that Kagome could not quite understand. She frowned, considering the question.

"I suppose I didn't think on it very often," she said at length. "Or perhaps there really wasn't anything to think on. Before all of this, I knew what my life would look like. I would have served as the miko of my village, for as long as I could. Trained a successor, if one could have been found. I'd have toiled alongside the other villagers, worked to ensure that we had food and shelter and protection."

Katsumi's look sharpened, her dark eyes searching Kagome's as if she could pull further answers from them. She shook her head, a faint frown curling down the corners of her lips.

"What of marriage?" she said. "Or children? Who would secure your family's position within the village if you did not produce heirs?"

Kagome shook her head.

"It doesn't exactly work for us like that," she said. "We've no real position to worry about securing. In the villages children tend to be more for the sake of having helping hands around the home or in the fields or when one grows too old to care for one's self any longer. I...I doubt that I would ever have married or had children, but I have a younger brother. I suppose he's likely to have children some day, to keep our family going and to care for our mother and grandfather when the time comes."

Katsumi tilted her head, dark eyes sharp as she considered this. Kagome shifted, slightly uneasy beneath the intensity of her stare and the thoughts of her family and the village that the question had stirred.

"Was that what you wanted, then?" Katsumi said at last. "That life?"

Kagome blinked, the blunt question hardly one she would have expected from the reserved woman. Nor was it one she particularly cared to dwell on. She clasped her hands in her lap, gaze falling to them.

"Not always," she settled on after several moments.

Katsumi was silent for a stretch and Kagome hazarded a glance up at her. Her eyes were bright, expression tense as she seemed to grapple with some line of thought.

"I have always known what my life would be," she said suddenly, the words escaping her in a hurried burst. "Since birth, it seems. 'Katsumi'-they hoped that I would be beautiful, and so my parents called me thus. A self-fulfilling prophecy, it seems. They hoped that I would be beautiful, because that was the best hope they could have for me."

She paused, her hands clenching and unclenching slowly in the fabric of her juni-hito in her lap. She sucked in a breath, her eyes sliding closed against the force of some emotion.

"Being only a minor clan, my parents understood that no matter how beautiful I was it was nigh impossible that I should ever become Empress," she continued. "But a concubine...that was within their reach. And who was to say, if I was chosen by the Tennō-sama quickly enough, that I should not be the first to bear his Majesty a son? A position of unique power for any clan to be in."

When she opened her eyes once more, tears clung brightly to her lashes, though they did not fall. Her dark eyes glittered, sharp as any blade. Unconsciously Kagome reached out, drawn by the woman's obvious pain, but Katsumi shook her head and she froze.

"When the current Tennō-sama was named successor and finally assumed the throne, they were quite disappointed to find that his Majesty appeared to have no interest in concubines," she said, and Kagome could hear the strain in her voice to keep her words level in the tremble of them. "Such a waste, they thought, to have a daughter so beautiful born to them at exactly the wrong moment. And I...I will confess to having been relieved."

The tears began to fall at last, tracking bright trails down her cheeks in the light of the lanterns. Katsumi made no move to hide them, and Kagome could only watch transfixed as she pressed on.

"I felt as if I had been spared. I felt as if I had been spirited away by a kami and placed atop a mountain peak, lands stretching out in every direction beneath me. Suddenly there was nothing before me, and yet to me it seemed like everything."

She paused, drawing a deep, shuddering breath, her hands clenching against the wood of the floor between them as she leaned forward to support herself.

"And now I find myself here," she said, her words scarcely above a whisper. "And my family is overjoyed. They tell me that surely this must be my fate, to have so much stacked against me and yet to somehow still have ended up at the Tennō-sama's side in the Dairi. And I try to tell it to myself...I tell it to myself over and over. This must be my fate. This must be it, be what I was made for. What else could it be, if everything leads me back to this? And moreover I should be grateful. There are so many worse...there is so much worse…."

Kagome watched as she struggled to finish, but the tears were coming so thick and fast now that there was no room left for words. She reached out, her hand clutching at one of Katsumi's trembling fists. Katsumi's throat worked as she visibly struggled to swallow back the force of her feelings and Kagome felt a lump swell in her own.

"Wait," she said, grateful for the miraculous steadiness of her own voice. "Just...wait, Nakatomi-sama. Hold on."

She gripped her hand more tightly, meeting the other woman's tear-bright eyes. Katsumi blinked hard, her chest nearly heaving with the force of her feelings.

"His Majesty….His Majesty has no desire to force anyone," she pressed on. "Into anything. Be it wife or concubine or what have you. You won't ever be made to do anything you do not wish to do. I swear it."

Katsumi met her eyes, drawing in several short, sharp breaths as she took in her words. Slowly some of the desperation seemed to go out of her eyes, but it left behind a hollowness in its wake. Katsumi shook her head, a small, helpless gesture.

"Then what?" she said. "What am I to be, here or anywhere else? What am I to tell my clan? My parents? That I had the chance that they wished for me from the moment of my birth and I had not the strength to pursue it? That I had everything I could hope for at my fingertips and I pushed it away with both hands?"

"Should I tell them that the thought of being a wife, of being a mother, has always been a foreign one to me? Should I tell them that even when I thought I was free, even when I felt that I stood atop that peak with everything before me, that I was still terrified? Because even everything can look like nothing when you've got no place in any of it."

Her hand trembled so violently beneath Kagome's own that the miko felt the quaking echo through her own limbs. She felt her own eyes prick, her vision blurring as she struggled to form words past the lump in her throat.

Because what could she say to that? What could she say to a sentiment that she understood so well?

Perhaps the trappings were different, but it had been much the same in her village. Wife, mother, miko. These were the paths that had been open to her. And was it truly so different here? Even Sango and her cousins had said as much to her, though perhaps she had not truly understood the depth of it at the time.

So what could possibly be said to this?

"...what do you want to be?"

Katsumi blinked, her dark eyes widening. Her lips worked soundlessly for several long moments before she shook her head, her eyes sliding shut.

"I can...I can appreciate the sentiment, O-Miko-sama, but p-please do not offer something that's not in your power," she said at last. "I understand now only too well that to have something and lose it can be far worse than never having had it at all."

Kagome nodded, swallowing back further tears. She swiped at her eyes with her free hand.

"I understand," she said. "And truthfully I do not know if it is in my power. I can promise you safety here. I can swear to you that you will never be made to do anything against your will. But...I would like to be able to offer you more than just an escape from a future you do not want. We...Amaterasu-sama brought each of you to us for a purpose. To build a better future for all of us, together. So, if I could offer it, what would it look like for you?"

Katsumi blinked, red-rimmed eyes widening. Her gaze fell to where Kagome's hand still rested over her own and she shook her head.

"Truthfully, I cannot say that I know," she said softly. "I've spent so much of my life trying to resign myself to a fate that I felt I could not fight that I never thought much on what a life I would want might look like."

Kagome squeezed her hand, offering her a small smile when she glanced up.

"Then maybe now is the time to begin."


In the days that followed Kagome quickly realized that Katsumi was far from the only one feeling as she did about her new situation. Now that her eyes were opened to it, she could see the uncertainty in the other women as clear as day as they moved through the Dairi and around Inuyasha. And she could not help but feel that in many ways she had been terribly remiss in her treatment of them.

She had thought of the necessity of Inuyasha taking an Empress and producing an heir. She had thought of their duty to the court and to the villages. She had even spared a thought for her own pain in all of this at the probability that her time with Inuyasha as it was was likely coming to an end.

But she had never once considered what this must be for the women. The uncertainty of being taken from the homes that they had known all their lives and brought suddenly into the Dairi. The feeling that they were being trotted out before the Tennō to be wife or mistress or concubine or nothing at all with no idea and little say in which it would be. She had not even thought to wonder if this was something that they had ever wanted for themselves.

Not to say that some of the women were not amenable to the idea, whichever it might be. As Kagome spoke to them in the following days, truly spoke to them for perhaps the first time since they had been named as appointees, she found several among them who would readily take up whichever mantle Inuyasha might offer them. Somehow these discussions were almost more difficult for her to have than the ones she had with the others, but she knew that they were just as essential despite her discomfort.

Many of them, however, were as uncertain and frightened as Katsumi was. They knew little of the Tennō beyond what they had been told and the handful of moments that they had been allowed to observe, much of which was either unflattering or intimidating. They waited with baited breath to see what sort of man he was, to see how they were to be treated, to find out what their lives were to be. And all the while their hopes simmered just beneath the surface for what their lives might be outside of all of this.

It took Kagome a little over five days to speak to all of the women she was now charged with and to get each of them to speak as candidly with her as she could hope. Katsumi was a great ally in opening a path for her in this endeavor, assuring any of the women who would listen that Kagome was open to hearing them and that there would be no repercussions for them speaking their minds to her. And after all of that, Kagome found herself exhausted and perhaps more abashed than she had ever been before.

Now she sat in Inuyasha's chambers, sorely tempted to lay down and rest her eyes as she awaited his arrival. She had sent him a note requesting an audience with him earlier in the day and had received a response to meet him in his chambers around the evening meal time. She was grateful for his foresight in that as the evening meal was one of the few times where her presence was not essential and would not be too sorely missed, the women being largely occupied with one another and their meals. She imagined it must be the same for him.

The whisper of the door hanging being pushed aside roused her from her stupor. Kagome jerked up, surprised to find that at some point she must have laid her head down and dozed. She blinked, bringing a hand up to rub at her bleary eyes as she turned towards the entryway of the room.

But Inuyasha was already at her side, kneeling down and peering anxiously into her face. She felt more than saw it as his hand came to rest against her forehead, the back of his palm almost startlingly warm against the skin there.

"Hey, you alright?"

Kagome blinked, unsure if she was more disoriented from having been roused from her impromptu nap or by the realization that this was the first time in over a week that she was able to be alone with Inuyasha for more than a handful of moments. Had his eyes always been quite that shade of gold?

"Kagome?"

"Sorry," she said, shaking her head. "Sorry. I think I accidentally fell asleep while waiting. I'm alright."

He eyed her for a moment longer, clearly not entirely satisfied with this answer. His eyes roved her face until they reached her lips, catching and fixing there. His hand shifted, sliding down to cup her jaw as he slowly leaned forward…

Only to be stopped by her palm sliding up between them. His eyes narrowed and she winced.

"We haven't got a lot of time," she said sheepishly, pulling her hand away. "And we've no way of knowing who might come looking for us."

The glare remained and he muttered something that she decided she was better off not understanding.

"I need to speak to you," she pressed on.

He quirked a brow as if to say that much was obvious, but waited for her to go on.

"It's about the women," she continued.

"Pains in the ass?" he said.

She frowned, leveling him with a withering look.

"What?" he said. "'S what the men are! Bunch of absolute pains in the ass, always talking and smiling and looking at me. I have to go to sleep just to get a fucking break."

Her frown slipped a notch, though she tried to stifle the sympathetic twinge she felt at the words. While their feelings about the situation they now found themselves in might be far more similar than she would have thought, she had not summoned him here to air her grievances.

"I have been talking to the women," she said, shaking her head. "In fact, I have done nothing but talk and listen and talk and listen for what feels like an age but has scarcely been a few days and I...I need your help. I've no idea where to go from here and I've been wrong about so many things."

"What d'you mean?"

"When we...I...when I decided on the appointments as a way forward, I thought that I understood what that meant," Kagome said. "I thought it was just something that the courtiers knew and that they would accept as I accepted it-without thought, without question. And they do, they are willing to, but...I never stopped to think what it must mean for the women. To be brought here knowing that...that…"

"That they don't get to decide what happens?"

Kagome blinked, her gaze darting up to his face. Inuyasha did not meet her eyes, a faint curl of disgust tugging down the corners of his lips.

"My mother was supposed to be married to some bastard courtier," he said at her surprised look. "She told me about it once when I was young, before she had to leave. Her clan had offered her to his clan as a trade for some land. She said it hadn't bothered her, that she'd always known that that's what was gonna happen to her eventually because that's what they'd told her her whole life, but that she just hated it when they told her about the land. Like she could've dealt with it until she realized that she was the same as land to all of those bastards."

"And then my old man came along and she said she loved him, but it's not like he was any fucking better than any of them. He just took what he wanted and didn't give a shit about the rest, about whether they'd break her engagement or whether the whole fucking court would harass her or...fuck, I dunno, Kagome, maybe he loved her, but he wasn't much better. He just took. So I get it."

Kagome gaped at him, her heart twisting in her chest. Because of what they had been through together outside of the court she knew a good deal about his mother and father, but this was a piece that Inuyasha had never shared with her before. She sucked in a breath, something clicking suddenly into place for her.

"Was this why you were so set against the appointments?"

Inuyasha's gaze shifted up to her, his brow furrowing incredulously. His eyes lingered on her face for several long seconds before he scoffed, shaking his head.

"Not exactly," he muttered. "But it didn't help."

Kagome bit her lip.

"I'm sorry," she said.

"Don't be," he said. "There's no way you coulda known."

"I could have," she countered. "About them if not about your mother. All it would have taken was a bit of thought for them, but I didn't even spare that. And I'm sorry for that, but I've no idea where to go from being sorry. It's not as if they dislike you. Far from it for most of them. And I know that several of them would be happy to be...to be chosen by you. But they also want more. They want...they want a choice. And I've no idea how to go about giving that to them."

She shrugged, feeling the prick of those same helpless tears she had shed the night Katsumi had spoken to her. Before she could sink too far into her frustration, though, she felt a sharp tug at the end of a lock of her hair. A surprised yelp escaped her and she leveled Inuyasha with a sharp look.

"What do you wanna do?" he said, tugging unrepentantly though a bit more gently at the strands of hair in his grasp.

Kagome met his look and saw the unspoken offer there. He trusted her to choose. Whatever she chose he would fight for it.

"Choices," she said softly. "The same as anyone else."

"Then that's what we do. We figure out how to give them a choice."

It was hardly a plan. It was barely even a concept really. But they had accomplished far more outlandish things together with far less to start with. She nodded.

The corner of his mouth turned up faintly and he nodded in return.

"They're running you ragged, huh?" he said.

Kagome breathed a sigh that she felt as though she had been holding in for weeks. She leaned her head against the hand that was still twined in her hair, tempted to close her eyes once more and doze off.

"You've no idea," she murmured. "I've hardly slept in days."

Inuyasha scoffed.

"You think mine are any better?" he said. "They never shut up. And that one, Hobo or whatever, is always yammering about you. Yesterday just to get him to shut up I almost told him that we-"

He cut himself off as her eyes snapped open, wide with alarm. Something in his gaze dimmed and his hand fell away from her face.

"I didn't," he said quietly. "I didn't say it."

But it was too late. The outside world fell between them and with it a wall of silence that neither knew how to pierce.

"I should go," Kagome said, though nothing in her wished to. "The women will be finishing dinner soon and they will wonder where I am. Perhaps we can meet in the next few days to discuss the next steps."

Before the sentence was even finished she had already risen to her feet. She had scarcely allowed herself more than a handful of moments since the appointees had moved into the Dairi to dwell on these thoughts of herself and Inuyasha and how rapidly they were moving towards the moment when there would be no herself and Inuyasha to even dwell on. And in the silence between them she could almost hear those thoughts clamoring for her attention. Better to go now, and quickly, before they could distract her.

Her hand was scarcely a finger's breadth from the entryway hanging when she felt the warmth of his hand wrap around her wrist. Kagome froze, held less by his grip than by the feel of him just behind her.

"Wait," he said, a low sound that rumbled along her skin like thunder. "Just wait."

Wait she did, but no more words were forthcoming. Instead the hand on her wrist guided her gently away from the entryway, guided her until she was cornered figuratively and literally.

Kagome found her eyes level with his red-clad chest and she fixed them there, tensing. Half of her wanted to resume fleeing while the other half wanted nothing more than to lean her head against that solid chest and rest, and so she did neither.

Thankfully Inuyasha did not seem to be similarly afflicted. She felt his arms go around her, steady and so warm.

"Just wait," he said again.

"I should go," she said, the words as flimsy moth-eaten silk.

But then his lips were hot against her throat, almost burning as they brushed her pulse point. His tongue skimmed lightly over the delicate flesh there, fangs grazing it in a way that made her skin suddenly feel too hot and too tight. A shudder ran through her, and she wondered giddily if he had always been this warm and it had simply been so long that she had forgotten.

That thought and any others were quickly driven from her head, though, as he pressed her more firmly against the wood of the wall behind her, lips and tongue still working fervently. He lifted her as if she weighed no more than a feather-she supposed with his strength that was not far from the truth- before settling eagerly between her parted thighs. A shaky little sound escaped her along with the last of her will to leave, her hands scrabbling for purchase on his shoulders as the length of him was pressed fully against her from chest to hip.

He rutted against her, hips rocking deeply into the cradle of hers in a motion that tore a low groan from him. Kagome's fingers curled into the fabric of his haori, her own moan swallowed greedily as his lips shifted to slant across hers. She could feel the length of him already hard and straining against her even through the layers of clothing between him and she hitched her legs up higher on his hips, deepening the friction of the movement.

"Shit," he murmured against her lips, the hand at her waist flexing spasmodically. "Shit, I missed this."

His tongue swept against hers, seeking, stroking. She met it with her own, one of her hands slipping in past the fabric of his collar to trace the stark ridge of his collarbone. The flesh there was as searingly hot as the rest of him, but somehow the feeling of that hard line beneath her fingertips grounded her enough to keep her mind from dissolving into a puff of steam as she feared it might.

"It's only...been a few days," she managed between clashes of lips and teeth and tongue.

He paused, pulling back just enough to shoot her a sharp look that was somewhat undermined by panting breaths and hooded eyes. His free hand shifted, leaving a trail of simmering heat in its wake as it slid up the length of her from hip to torso to cup her breast through the fabric of her robes. At the same moment he flexed his hips purposefully against hers, the two sensations combined enough to make Kagome's toes curl. Her head fell back with a faint thump against the wood of the wall, a small, strangled sound escaping her.

Inuyasha groaned, lips returning to the exposed line of her throat like a moth to a flame.

"P-Point taken," she gasped.

A low, satisfied sound was his only response, the sound of it sliding along her skin like a caress. Inuyasha's hand shifted, pressing past the edge of her robes to cup her breast fully in a calloused palm. He kneaded the flesh there, clawed thumb tracing tight circles around her peaked nipple through the fabric of her bindings. Kagome swallowed a whimper, thighs flexing around his hips to draw him in closer as his thrusts against her grew frantic.

"Please…" she breathed.

But he was already moving, the hand that had been on her hip now fumbling between them at the ties to first hers and then his hakama. He shifted, his weight against her and her thighs around his hips holding her suspended as he freed himself. Another shift and she could feel the head of him pressing against her, her hakama slipping down her legs to pool at her feet.

Inuyasha met her eyes, his look seeking. She nodded, shifting her hips as much as she was able to bring herself closer to him.

There was no stifling the yelp that escaped her as he slid into her in one smooth, sharp motion, burying himself to the hilt. It was a dizzying sensation, so keen it bordered on pain as she stretched and clenched around him.

"Fuck, sorry," he murmured, and she could feel him shuddering against her with the effort it took to remain still. "Kami, you're so wet I just...Are you…?"

"I'm alright," she said, sucking in a breath through her teeth.

She flexed her hips experimentally against him, hissing in another breath at the sensation that even that small movement sent lancing through her. She clenched around him, ankles crossing behind his hips in an effort to draw him in even closer.

Inuyasha's moan was muffled against her shoulder, the hand that still cupped her breast flexing against the tender flesh. His free arm snaked itself around her waist, simultaneously steadying her and pressing her further down against him. Kagome whimpered, head falling forward until her forehead bumped lightly against his own.

"Fuck," Inuyasha murmured, eyes screwed shut against the strength of the sensation.

"Agreed," she breathed, an experimental flexing of his hips against her almost enough to drive her out of her own mind.

Inuyasha's eyes slid open, one dark brow quirking. He repeated the motion, fighting back a shudder of his own in favor of watching her face. The corner of his mouth tipped up into a slow smirk.

"You almost swore."

Kagome blinked, tried to gather enough of her wits to process the words. She frowned.

"I did not," she said, the last word dissolving into a gasp as Inuyasha pressed up into her in a deep flex of his hips.

"Close enough," he muttered, the words somewhat more strained now. "Let's see...if I can...make you do it for real…"

Each bit was punctuated by a deepening thrust against her, and Kagome had to bite her lip against the urge to do exactly as he said. The hand cupping her breast flexed, fingers finding her peaked nippled and tugging gently. Even the small contact sent a jolt straight through her and down to where they were connected, her body clenching tight around him.

Inuyasha groaned, the sound rumbling across her lips as he tilted his head up to capture them. His tongue curled against hers as if he could taste the small sounds escaping her, the arm around her waist tightening as he used his hold to drag her body down to meet each thrust. Kagome's nails curled against the straining flesh of his shoulder, feeling the coil in her stomach begin to wind tight with every tug at her nipple and press of him deeper inside of her.

"Kagome," he murmured against her lips. "Fuck. Kagome, Kagome. Shit, you feel...you feel so…"

"Please," Kagome keened, scarcely aware of it as the words left her. "Please, Inuyasha! Yes, please, just like...just like-!"

Abruptly she tensed, the head of him grinding against something inside her that made her vision go white. Her back arched, every muscle in her body stretched taut with the force of her release.

Vaguely Kagome heard Inuyasha curse, felt him pant her name into the hollow between her neck and shoulder as he continued to move frantically inside of her. Her limbs began to quake at the continued friction, the sensation heightening her pleasure to a fever pitch.

After what could have been mere moments or an eternity to her addled mind, she felt his hips stutter in their almost bruising rhythm. He flexed hard against her, burying his length as deeply as he could as he reached his own release.

His body jerked in a few more stuttering thrusts as he spent himself inside her. Slowly he stilled against her, the only sound their labored breathing as each eased down from the height of their climax into the boneless contentment of the afterglow.

"...Missed you," Inuyasha murmured into the flesh of her shoulder, so low she was not sure that she was meant to hear it.

Kagome's eyes slid shut, the sentiment echoing in her more sharply than she would have expected. She had missed him. That was the feeling that had been hollowing out her chest, wrapping itself up in the guise of annoyance and frustration. She had missed the warmth of his skin against hers, had missed the way his ears twitched when she teased him, had missed the faint furrow between his dark brows that formed when he watched her while he thought she was unaware. She had missed having his focus fixed fully on her and the way he swore without censoring himself and the way he always made certain he was near enough to her that if he just stretched out the tips of his fingers they would brush against her.

All of which, she realized, was utterly foolish.

It was not as if they had truly been separated. They had scarcely been farther apart than the space of several walls the entire time. She had seen him in passing and spoken to him on occasion, albeit only in the brief, constrained manner necessitated by so many new eyes upon them.

And besides, these moments between them were numbered. They had been from the moment they had begun. They were transitory, beautiful, like pockets of sunshine in the depths of winter's chill, something to be secreted away in the corners of her thoughts and to be brought out in private moments to be looked upon fondly. But she could no more hold them than she could grasp sunlight itself, and so what was the point in missing it? What was the point in clinging to something she would have to surrender as soon as they found a suitable choice?

"Kagome?" he said, voice losing some of its post-coital haziness. "Are you alright? Did I hurt-?"

"I missed you, too," she said, bowing her head to rest it against his still-covered shoulder.

She said it because it was true and because pockets of warmth were necessary, even if they were fleeting.


Inuyasha was the one who figured it out.

It had been staring him right in the face, he told her after barging into her residence two days later. Kagome hurriedly begged the pardon of the women, asking a nearby servant to guide his Majesty to a sitting room and prepare something for him to eat. Due largely to the astonishment of the women, she was then able to slip away to join him.

He was certainly not using the sitting room for sitting. Rather he was pacing agitatedly back and forth, the servant eyeing him uncertainly as he placed several dishes down on the low table. Kagome thanked the man and waited for him to depart before addressing Inuyasha.

"What in the world has gotten into you?" she said, stepping in to block his path.

"I figured it out," he said. "The choice! I figured it out!"

"The-?" Kagome began, confused, and then, realization dawning, "Oh! Oh! What? What is it?"

"I was with the Council," he said. "Bored out of my fucking skull while they droned on about silk distribution or some shit-"

He paused at Kagome's chastening frown, shrugging.

"What? Even you'd be hard pressed to pay attention to most of that bullshit," he said. "But I was sitting there, staring at the wrinkly-ass faces of all those old wrinkly-ass old men and I realized that they all looked exactly the same. All of them. And every Ministry branch is the same. Every fucking one. But what if they looked different? What if they were different?"

Kagome's eyes widened, the meaning behind his words striking her almost with the force of a blow.

"You mean…" she said, but could not gather enough words together to finish the thought.

Inuyasha nodded, a hint of pride curling up one corner of his mouth.

"But...is it...do you think they would even allow it to happen?" she said.

That curl smoothed out.

"No," he said,some of the excitement going out of his words. "Not without a fight. There's a certain number of seats in every branch. They only get filled when one of the geezers croaks and it's usually by nomination of the other geezers who pick another geezer, though I could pick the new one if I needed to. Even if I did, though, they'd push back. 'Sides, it would take forever to get them all in if we just waited around for people to die."

"Morbid," Kagome murmured, more to herself than to him. "Then what do you propose?"

"A new Ministry branch," he said. "We can't get them into one, then we create one for them."

"You could do that?" Kagome said, struck again by both the idea and the thought behind it.

"I'm the Tennō, right?"

A disbelieving laugh escaped her.

"I suppose you are," she said, and she could see the grin stretching across her face mirrored in his. "But what sort of branch will you create for them? How does one even go about doing so?"

He shrugged, his look largely unconcerned.

"Didn't get that far," he said. "I figured we'd do that part together, like the rest."

Kagome could have kissed him. And so she did.

"Together it is, then."


It took a mere two days for them to cobble together a rough idea of what they wanted their new Ministry branch to look like.

They both excused themselves from their respective appointees, allowing them the time and freedom to visit their residences and families or to remain and explore the Dairi at their own leisure as they chose. Most of the appointees opted for the former over the latter, but either way it gave them the time and space that they needed to work.

After consulting a few texts from the records room in the Chūwain, they found that it was well within Inuyasha's right as the Tennō to create or dissolve any Ministry branch as he saw fit so on that point at least there was no uncertainty. There was also, however, no recorded instance that they could find of a woman ever having been appointed to a position within any Ministry branch. There was also nothing they could find that explicitly forbade women from entering, either, which Kagome took as an encouraging sign.

Still, they both agreed after some discussion that a Ministry branch composed solely of women would ultimately be counter-productive to their aims. They did not want the branch to look like a mere anomaly, a thing designed apart from all of the other branches and subject to none of the same respect. If they ultimately wished for the women to be considered for any and all of the branches then this branch would have to be considered as an equal to the others and that meant bringing in the men, as well.

They would open the branch to any of the appointees who had a desire to enter. They would also keep it close, assign to it duties specifically within the Dairi both to allow them to retain their status as appointees and to give them the space needed to learn. Many of them, the women in particular, had not been allowed the same education as those who were groomed all their lives to go into the branches. They would need time and guidance in order to learn, to gain enough experience that no one could take exception should the time come for them to cross into another branch.

With the plan as fleshed out as it was going to be-a good deal of it, Kagome realized, would simply have to come with time and error-the time came at last to tell the appointees.

They summoned them all to the Shishinden just after the afternoon meal. Inuyasha sat atop the throne on the raised dais, Kagome on the cushion a few steps down on his left hand side. The appointees filed in in pairs, their looks ranging from curious to faintly nervous as they took their places atop the cushions that had been laid out for them. Katsumi in particular pinned Kagome with a wide-eyed look that she met with what she hoped was a reassuring nod.

"Thank you all for coming, cousins," she said when the last of them had trickled in. "I know you must all be wondering why his Majesty and I have summoned you here, so we will not keep you long in suspense. Tennō-sama."

She shifted enough where she sat to bow her head to Inuyasha, deferring to him. While he did not relish the prospect of being made to speak more than was strictly necessary, they had agreed beforehand that the news would be best delivered by him. He rose, eyeing the uncertain faces of the appointees below him.

"Like Kagome said, you're probably all worried about why we called you here together, but you don't need to be," he said. "In the weeks since you came here we have both been watching you and trying to decide the best way to go forward. Before now, in the times of our fathers and mothers and grandmothers and grandfathers, it meant one thing for women to be appointees and another thing for men. But we're not them and the things they wanted aren't the things we want. Or maybe they are and they just never got the chance to ask for them."

"Either way, we wanna give you all a chance to choose what this is going to look like for you. For all of you. So we've decided to create the Ministry of the Imperial Household."

He paused at this, watching them for reactions. The looks that met his own were bemused at best. He frowned, looking to Kagome in askance.

"Cousins," she took up for him. "What his Majesty is saying is that he has decided to create this new branch of the Ministry and to give a place in it to any here who wish one. The branch will be focused around maintaining and managing matters of the imperial household to allow you all to maintain your status as appointees and to remain here in the Dairi. We are also aware that many of you were not afforded the same advantages of those who might have been studying their whole lives to enter the Ministry, so we intend to make certain that you all will be allowed time and tutelage in order to learn. It is also our intention that through this branch you should all gain any of the experience necessary to move into any Ministry branch in the future, should you wish it."

The bemusement was long gone by the time she finished speaking, replaced with wide-eyed silence. Kagome observed them, content to allow them as much time as they might need to process this.

"By 'all of us', do you mean…?"

The voice, scarcely more than a whisper, issued from Katsumi, seemingly without her consent. Her dark eyes were wide and unblinking as they met Kagome's, hope and fear mingling there in almost equal measure. Kagome offered her a small smile.

"We mean all of you," she said firmly. "Women and men. Any among you who wish to enter may enter. No one will be denied, but nor will any among you be forced if it is not something you wish. As the Tennō-sama said, all we want is to give you all a choice as we move forward."

Tears had begun to leak from Katsumi's eyes in silent streams and several of the appointees around her leaned in to offer their support, one man proffering a cloth from his pocket for her to use. The hand of one of the women trembled as she accepted the cloth on Katsumi's behalf, handing it to her.

"But...how?" Hisana spoke up from the back of the group, her face faintly paler than its usual hue. "There was never...it was never…"

Inuyasha shrugged, looking vaguely discomfited by Katsumi's tears.

"Just because it never was doesn't mean it can't be," he said. "There was nothing that said that I couldn't, so I did. And there will be people who don't like it, people who don't want it, but it was the same thing with me becoming Tennō. If you're willing to fight, so am I."

"I am," said Katsumi hurriedly, voice thick with feeling.

"And I."

"I am."

"So am I."

"I will."

"As will I."

The chorus of answers swelled through the room, filled it to brimming as women and men alike joined in. Some among them shed tears as Katsumi did, in the faces of others there was a faint fear, but beneath it all there was a burgeoning hope that found its voice in their cries that they would fight.

And thus the Ministry of the Imperial Household was born.


"I...brought this."

Kanna proffered her mirror, the one that Kagome had first seen her carrying what now felt like a lifetime ago at her first women's outing.

Kagome blinked, not at all certain what to make of the gesture. Tonight was Kanna's night to play at handmaiden and Kagome had come into the evening with no idea of what to expect. She had scarcely exchanged more than a handful of words with the girl in all her time at court, including even in these past few weeks since she had come into the Dairi. Although that seemed to simply be the way that Kanna interacted with everyone, drifting blank-faced from place to place with no apparent interest in anyone or anything.

Which made this sudden shift even more difficult to comprehend.

"It's...lovely," Kagome said, at a loss for anything else to say. "Thank you for bringing it."

Kanna made no response, but there was something like expectation in her dark eyes as she continued to stare unblinking up into Kagome's face.

"He said...to bring it," Kanna said after several beats of puzzled silence on Kagome's end. "He said...that you were...lonely. That you...wanted to see your...friends."

"He?" Kagome echoed, frowning faintly. "You don't mean…?"

She trailed off, a memory from a few days before clicking suddenly into place. After the midday meal she had seen Inuyasha leaving accompanied by Kanna, the image striking her immediately as an odd one. She had dismissed it, though, as she and Inuyasha had been working since their announcement in the Shishinden to try and speak to each of the appointees in order to figure where they might best fit moving forward with the new branch. If he had somehow managed to find a way to communicate with Kanna when she had struggled to, then she was glad of it-even if it was difficult to imagine.

And of course it must have been him. Who else knew enough of her to tell something like that to Kanna?

But to what end?

"Do you mean...the Tennō-sama asked you to show me my friends? How?"

"Think...of them," Kanna said softly. "Only them. Think hard. Look...into...the mirror. I can...find them. You can...see them. Speak to...them."

She held the mirror aloft once more, bringing it almost to Kagome's eye level. Kagome glanced from it to her and back again, still not entirely certain what to make of all this. Still, if Inuyasha had sent her then surely there could be no harm in it. And if there was even a chance that she might be able to see her friends…

Peering into the mirror, Kagome tried to focus her thoughts on her friends. In her mind's eye she could see them, could feel their arms around her as she had in those moments before they had last parted. She could hear Shippou's laughter and feel Sango's warmth at her side and see Miroku's easy grin. And she wanted to see them so badly that the longing was almost a physical ache in her chest.

Youki crept like goosebumps across her sixth sense and the mirror went dark. From the darkness an image slowly emerged.

The light of a few dying embers cast deep shadows across a face so dear to Kagome that for a moment she felt as though she could not catch her breath. The angle was disorienting, the view fixed somewhere a distance below Sango's chin and reflecting upwards, but still Kagome could scarcely have been happier had she found herself standing face to face with the woman.

Even in the dim light, though, it was not difficult to see that Sango was far from sharing in her happiness. Her dark eyes were unfocused and her skin was a shade beyond its usual delicate pale, even the warmth of the nearby fire failing to lend any color to her cheeks. Dark smudges sat heavy beneath her eyes as if it had been days since she had last slept and a few streaks of dirt even lingered here and there across the normally pristine woman's face.

The woman who had treated her as a sister almost since they had first met looked as though she had been hollowed out by exhaustion and suffering and Kagome wanted nothing more than to reach out and wrap her arms around her.

"The wards are up and Shippou-kun seems to have fallen asleep."

With the limited view that the mirror allowed Kagome could not see the owner of the voice, but she would have known it anywhere. Tears pricked at the corners of her eyes as Miroku came near enough to be touched by the light of the embers, scarcely more than a towering outline against the darkness of the surrounding night but still a precious sight.

The outline of him hunched down and she heard the hollow sound of wood on wood followed by a few loud pops. Based on the few sparks that were sent spinning through the air, she guessed he must be feeding the dying fire. The lick of a flame's light that danced across Sango's face a few moments later proved her guess correct.

"If you are finished polishing your wakizashi, I caught a rabbit while I was putting up the wards that I would be happy to cook for us, Sango-sama," came Miroku's voice once more, a tentative note there that was unusual for him.

Sango blinked as if she had only just realized that she was not alone. The flames danced in her eyes as she lifted them to Miroku, seeming to struggle for a moment to process what he had just said.

"No thank you, Houshi-sama," she said softly at last. "I am not hungry."

There was a beat of fraught silence.

"Sango-sama, you haven't eaten anything today," Miroku said. "You need to keep up your strength."

Sango's gaze fell.

"For what?" she murmured, the words barely rising above the crackling of the flames. "It's been over a month that we have been at this, Miroku. If Kohaku wanted to be caught, we would have caught him by now. Clearly he has no desire to see me."

There was a faint rustling as Miroku moved, shifting into Kagome's view. He was close enough to reach out and touch Sango, though he did not.

"Sango," he said, the word demanding her attention. "We've no way of knowing what Kohaku wants right now. As Kagome-sama said, he's not in his right mind."

Sango bit her lip, the words clearly of little comfort to her. There was a sheen creeping across her eyes brighter than that of the firelight and she shook her head hard.

"And what does that say of me?" she said. "What does it say of me that I stood beside my younger brother for days, perhaps for weeks, and saw nothing of his suffering? What does it say of me that I allowed him in his suffering to attack, nearly to kill, one of my dearest friends? What does any of it say of me save that I am not fit to be here, that I've no chance of saving my brother now when I could not save him before?"

The tears fell in earnest now, rolling thick and hot down her cheeks. A few dripped from her chin, splattering across the surface of Kagome's mirror and obstructing her view of the two somewhat. Her wakizashi, Kagome realized suddenly. Sango must be holding it in her lap and Kanna must need a reflective surface in order for her power to work.

Thankfully she was still able to see it as Miroku reached out, his gloved hand coming to rest over one of Sango's. Sango glanced up, obviously as surprised at the gesture as Kagome was. While Miroku was hardly conservative when it came to touching most people, he had largely avoided almost any physical contact with Sango since her failed confession to him.

"All that any of this says of you, Sango, is that you are exhausted," he said, meeting her eyes firmly. "It says that, as you yourself have said, you've now spent over a month's time giving everything you have to find your brother, despite what he was forced to do to your friend. It says that you dismissed your fellow clansmen from the search in order to be able to move even more quickly and that still every time that we have managed to catch up with Kohaku, he has somehow managed to evade us. It says that you have hardly slept or eaten in days and it is finally beginning to wear on you. It says nothing more and nothing less than that you are human, and one of the strongest ones that I know."

Kagome could see Sango's throat working as she swallowed hard, a fresh wash of tears spilling down her cheeks. A faint tremble went through her, the mirror itself seeming to shake as the wakizashi shifted in her lap.

"I'm exhausted, Miroku," she said, her voice breaking around the words. "I'm so exhausted, but I am terrified that if I stop for even a moment then that will be the moment when I lose Kohaku for good. That we will lose him and any hope of catching the youkai who killed your father. I do not know how I would live with myself were I to fail the both of you so terribly."

Miroku tensed at the mention of his father, his eyes flitting briefly to the rosary wrapped around the hand that held Sango's. Still he offered her a gentle smile, clutching her hand more tightly.

"You need not fear disappointing me," he said. "You could not even should you try to. And if you are exhausted then lean on me. I can carry the weight until you are ready to walk again. The kami know that you have done it often enough for me."

Sango's eyes widened, flames dancing in their depths as they fixed on his face. Miroku met her look. A tremulous smile crept slowly across her face, accompanied by several more tears.

"Thank you," she said softly. "I'll confess that despite it all I've still managed to find time to worry that I had lost my dearest friend to my own stupidity. I see now that he is still beside me."

Miroku's smile dimmed somewhat.

"I am," he said softly. "Though I have done little of late to earn the title. The way I spoke to you that day, Sango-"

"Stop," she cut across him. "You need make no apologies for that day. I-I misunderstood you, but it's not a mistake I will ever make again. If I can have you at my side as my friend, then there is nothing more that I can ask for. I need you with me, now more than perhaps I ever have."

Kagome could see the line of Miroku's shoulders grow taut. Shadows played across his face, deepening the furrow of his brow and the lines around his mouth. She could see the controlled press of his lips together, but could only guess at the words he held so tightly behind them. Whatever it was, it hurt her almost as much to witness the silent struggle as she was sure it hurt for him to wage it.

But Sango's eyes were wide, hopeful, seeking as they roved his face. Tears still clung wetly to her lashes, glimmering there like stars, and despite the dirt streaking her face and the red rimming her eyes Kagome still thought her one of the most striking people she had ever seen.

And suddenly Miroku was leaning forward, his hand tightening around Sango's. His eyes were fixed on her face as if in a trance, finally falling to settle on her lips. Sango seemed to freeze, her eyes impossibly wide as she watched his approach.

A faint clacking echoed between them, the sound of the beads of Miroku's rosary knocking together. He froze, the spell broken as his gaze was forced to his gloved hand. All the color seemed to drain from his face in an instant, his face twisting as he levered himself hurriedly back and away from Sango.

Sango blinked, color rising rapidly to her cheeks as confusion and something painfully near to disappointment warred in her expression. Miroku could not meet her gaze, slowly uncurling his hand from around hers and pulling it away with no small amount of effort.

There were several beats of silence that seemed to stretch on for an eternity, Miroku's jaw clenched tight against the force of some feeling. At last, though, he was able to lift his gaze, a shadow obscuring his face for a moment before sliding away to reveal his usual blithe smile.

"My apologies, Sango-sama," he said, a faint strain just beneath the words. "I thought I saw something on your face. I was mistaken."

Disappointment flickered across Sango's face, though she tucked it away as quickly as she could manage.

"It's alright," she said. "Perhaps we are both more tired than we thought."

The blithe smile faltered momentarily.

"Perhaps," he said.

He rose, clapping his hands together with forced cheer. The rosary beads echoed loudly once more.

"I think food would do us both well," he said. "I will start preparing the rabbit."

"Oh," said Sango. "Yes. Of course. Thank you, Houshi-sama."

He turned to go, but paused before he had made it a step.

"Sango-sama?"

"Yes?"

"...if you need it, I will walk at your side until my end. Please know that."

And then he was gone, disappearing into the darkness just beyond the circle of firelight.

Several more tears splattered across the face of the mirror, obscuring Kagome's view of her friend. Slowly she picked up her wakizashi and Kagome caught one last glimpse of her tear-stained face before she sheathed it, plunging her into darkness.

Kagome stared into the darkened mirror for several long moments, scarcely able to process what she had just seen.

"...crying?"

The soft voice startled her, bringing her abruptly back to herself. Kagome realized simultaneously that she was crying, tears streaming steadily down her cheeks, and that Kanna was still there. Which, of course she was, but she had been so overwhelmed with seeing her friends and what she had seen that she had completely forgotten all else.

"Your friends...are hurt?" Kanna said, the words barely rising above a whisper.

"No," Kagome said, swiping at her eyes hastily. "Well, yes. But no."

Kanna cocked her head slightly, though her snow-pale face was as devoid of expression as ever.

"You did not...speak," she said.

"I…"

Kagome trailed off, realizing that she was not quite certain why she had not spoken. She had meant to, had wanted to. So what had sealed her lips?

Certainly she had had no desire to interrupt the fraught moment that had passed between them. Truly she should have turned away as soon as she had realized what was happening, but she had felt the same hope that she had seen flash through Sango's eyes bubbling up in her chest and she had been helpless to look away. All for nothing, though. For all the pain that it caused him, it seemed Miroku would not be swayed from his resolve.

But even before the moment had stolen her voice she had still said nothing. Because what could she say to them? While she could now give a name to their shared foe, it was not as though she was much closer to finding a way to stop him. And it seemed that they still had not been able to catch Kohaku, who she had been a mere hair's breadth away from and who she had let slip away. What right did she have to say anything to them right now?

"This was enough for now," she settled on at last. "Seeing that they are alright. It was enough."

Kanna's expression did not shift, but Kagome could have sworn there was something like sadness reflected in her dark eyes.

Kagome offered her a small smile, grateful for the small show of sympathy.

"Thank you, Kanna-sama," she said. "For allowing me to see them. It means more to me than you can know."

Kanna blinked slowly, the words appearing foreign to her. After a moment she gave a small nod.

Kagome's smile widened slightly. She was still a far cry from being able to understand the girl, but she knew a good heart when she saw one.


The summons to Inuyasha's chambers that came a few days later was a welcome one. Kagome had had little opportunity to speak to the hanyou in the past few days and she had things she desperately needed to get off of her chest.

But as she pushed past the entryway hanging and caught sight of him, words were not the first thing that came to mind. She found herself striding towards him, what felt like scarcely two steps eating up the distance to his side as he rose to meet her.

She had a moment to observe the almost comical look of surprise on his face, golden eyes going wide as she took his face between her hands and pulled it down to meet hers. His lips were a bit stiff against her own, but the surge of gratitude and affection she felt at the sight of him was so strong that there was little room left for anything else.

After a moment he relaxed and she felt his arms go around her and his lips respond to the insistent press of hers. And he was warm and solid and so, so kind even though he would never admit to it, would scoff at her if she even dared to say it, she could at least do this.

But suddenly this was lips and teeth and tongues and she was being pressed down, being laid out amongst the scattered cushions at their feet. The warmth of his lips crept along her skin, filling her with a faint ache that whispered to her to just lay back and surrender to it.

Sadly, though, there was no time for this. Truly, this time. They had scarcely enough time to discuss...whatever it was that he had summoned her here to discuss before the women would be expecting her again for the afternoon meal. They could not afford for someone to come seeking her only to find them like this.

Still she allowed it to go on for a few moments longer than she should have before reluctantly disentangling herself. Inuyasha made as if to pursue, his eyes hooded, and she had to force herself to press a restraining hand to his chest.

"Wait," she murmured.

Inuyasha blinked, some of the haze clearing from his eyes. He pulled back enough to search her face, concern edging his expression.

"Sorry," he said. "I didn't mean...are you alright?"

Kagome nodded hurriedly.

"No, no," she said. "It's alright. It was me...I-I just wanted to thank you."

Inuyasha's brow furrowed.

"Thank…?"

He cut himself off, realization dawning.

"You saw them?" he said.

Kagome nodded, a smile lighting her face.

"I did," she said. "They are...not well, but alright. Tired, perhaps, but whole and uninjured. Still following Kohaku-sama's trail. But at least I know now that they are safe and that I can look in on them again when I want to. Thanks to you. You said you would find a way for me to see them, and you did."

Inuyasha blinked, his face reddening. Kagome had to bite back a laugh, amused by the fact that it was a compliment flustering him while he was at the same moment pressed against her chest to hip.

"Keh."

"I am serious, Inuyasha," Kagome pressed on, refusing to be brushed off. "It...it might seem nothing to you, but it meant a great deal to me."

"It ain't nothing. I know that."

Kagome offered him a small smile which he reddened further under, his gaze sliding away from hers.

"How in the world did you get Kanna-sama to agree to it, though?"

Inuyasha shrugged, the gesture made slightly awkward by their position.

"I heard Kagura talking to her about the mirror," he said. "And I thought...I don't know. I just talked to her. She doesn't talk much, so people don't talk to her a lot. I get it. I didn't talk much when I was a brat either, so people didn't talk to me."

Silently Kagome marveled at this. Somehow Inuyasha continued to surprise her despite everything.

"That was good of you," she said softly.

Inuyasha shrugged once more, but this time his gaze lingered on her face. She found herself holding her breath, conscious once more of how close he still was. She wondered if he would lean in that last little bit…

Thankfully he seemed to have a bit more self-control than she did at the moment, pushing up and away from her until he could sit up. He offered a hand, pulling her up until she could sit, as well. She swallowed a small twinge of disappointment, sweeping her hands over her robes to straighten them out.

"What-what was it that you needed?" she said, struggling to regain some sense of her equilibrium.

Inuyasha frowned, hesitating.

"...I talked to Hobo," he said at last, the words heavy with reluctance.

"Hobo?" Kagome echoed, frowning.

His frown edged into a scowl.

"Hobo," he repeated. "The guard. The one that's always drooling over you."

"Oh," she said, eyes widening. "You mean Akitoki-sama? And he does not drool over-"

She cut herself off at Inuyasha's sharp look, both of them only too aware that any denial of the guard's feelings would be a falsehood. She shook her head.

"Anyway, his feelings are no concern of mine until he chooses to make them so," she said.

Inuyasha quirked a dark brow, his look darkening.

"And when he does?" he challenged. "Then what?"

Kagome shrugged, her gaze sliding to the tatami beneath them.

"That's a problem for another day," she said.

Ungraciously she hoped that that day would never come. She had no desire to experience what she had with Kouga over again with the guardsman.

Inuyasha's expression did not lighten and the tightness of his jaw told Kagome he would press the issue if he was not redirected quickly.

"What did the two of you discuss?" she said quickly. "Surely nothing so mundane as all this."

Inuyasha's scowl deepened for a moment before he seemed to relent.

"Demoralizing an enemy," he said flatly.

Kagome's brows rose.

"What?"

The scowl returned.

"He was babbling about you," he spat. "Asking how you were and what you like and what I-what I thought about you. And I thought about just hitting him to get him to shut up for once, but you said that ain't an option if it wasn't a fight. So I asked him about fighting. And like always the idiot went on and on until I thought my ears might start bleeding, but then he finally said something worth listening to."

Kagome found herself nearly gaping at him, wondering which part of the mess that had just come out of his mouth that she should address first. After a moment she simply shook her head, deciding that anything she might choose would end in a fight that they did not have time for.

"And what was that?" she said.

"He talked about battles he'd read about," he said. "How he'd studied records on battles from years ago. And a lot of it was bullshit, but then he said something that made sense. He said that demoralizing the enemy is the best way to keep them from attacking or to get the upper hand."

He gave her a meaningful look that she did her best to return, but after a moment she had to shake her head a bit sheepishly as she failed to comprehend his meaning.

"The ships," he said with faint exasperation. "We need to demoralize the ships. At worst we buy ourselves time, at best they decide that whatever Menōmaru's paying them ain't worth it."

Kagome's eyes widened. The distraction of the appointments had kept her from dwelling too much on thoughts of the ships, but the worry was one that always hummed softly in the back of her mind. She frowned, though. While the concept was an interesting one, it was hardly a plan of any sort.

"But how?" she said.

"The scale," he said, leaning towards her. "You still have it, right?"

"Of course," Kagome said. "But the ningyō-"

"They won't risk their own asses," Inuyasha broke in. "Not for us or anyone that ain't them. I get it. But this won't be a risk. They go in at night only and focus on a few ships. Take down as many as they can before they're seen, then they get out. They keep an eye on them and let us know if they're getting ready to come at us. I know it ain't much, but it might be enough to keep the wakō off our asses until we can work out a real plan."

Kagome searched his face, considering this. Whatever angle she looked at it from, it seemed sound enough. There was little ground for the ningyō to object on as there was little risk to them if they were careful. He was right in that it was a temporary deterrent at best, but it was at least a step in the right direction. The wakō would be confused, struggling against an enemy that they could not see. With any luck they would be made cautious, their advance checked by fear of repercussions from an unknown foe. And their hesitation might give them the time to come up with a more permanent solution.

She nodded.

"It's good," she said. "It could work."

The corner of his lips quirked up, some small amount of pride creeping in.

"Tonight, then," he said. "Sneak out and meet me on the water walkway to my chambers."

Hope leapt like an ember rising in her chest. Kagome nodded.


That night proved that sneaking was no more Kagome's strong suit than it was Inuyasha's. Although, she lamented, there were certain circumstances in this instance that were beyond her control.

Inuyasha eyed her companion, mistrust writ deep across his features. Her companion met his look, unmoved.

Kagome pressed a hand to her head, feeling a faint headache coming on.

She had thought her handmaiden for the night was well and truly asleep by the time that she attempted to sneak out, but she should have known better than to rest on any assumption when it came to Kagura.

The youkai had caught her just as she was slipping out through the shoji, inquiring in a manner that brooked no dissemblance as to where she intended to go under the cover of darkness. Kagome had frozen, pinned in place by a level blood-red gaze.

The implications were clear. If she refused to answer then it would be tantamount to an admission that she was involved in some kind of deception. Despite their tentative truce she was well aware that neither of them trusted one another fully, but Kagome understood that ultimately Kagura had no desire greater than that of freeing herself from Naraku's hold once and for all. Thus her decision was made.

And thus she found herself between Inuyasha and Kagura, lamenting silently that she should have just remained in her futon.

"What is she doing here, Kagome?"

"Your miko invited me," Kagura replied coolly, ignoring his address. "We are allies, are we not, Tennō-sama?"

Inuyasha spared her a sharp look before his gaze turned to Kagome. She shrugged, a helpless gesture.

"Kagura-sama is our ally, is she not?" she said, hoping he would understand her.

The three of them did share a common enemy. While she was far from being able to trust Kagura in full, she was confident at least in the woman's self-interest.

"If this is, as I suspect, to do with Naraku, you would do well to keep me informed," Kagura said. "As I thought that I had already made clear, you've little hope of accomplishing much against him without my aid."

Though Inuyasha's look did not soften, a grudging acquiescence edged into it. Kagome met his look with a nod.

"I can understand your wariness, but Kagura-sama does have a point," she said.

Ideally they might have shared their plans with her a bit further down the line and in a far more controlled manner, but there was little help for it now.

Inuyasha's jaw clenched around a denial. His gaze slid back to Kagura, eyeing her for a long moment before he huffed out a sigh.

"Fine," he said. "You know about the ships?"

Kagura arched a dark brow.

"I had heard whispers," she returned. "But Naraku is as cautious as he is cruel. I suspect he is the only one who ever knows the totality of his plans. The rest of us are never given more than pieces, no more than is necessary to carry out his orders."

Inuyasha and Kagome traded a look. After a moment she nodded, silently conceding that this made sense.

"We believe that he's baited one of the former Tennō-sama's enemies," she said. "Someone who wants to help take advantage of the unrest that he has been fostering within the court. And that person in turn has hired the wakō to do his dirty work. We believe that he is waiting for word from Naraku to press the attack, but we hope to preempt any fighting on our shores if possible."

Kagura's lips pressed into a thin line, her gaze hooded.

"It would be like him to know how to play on the fears of those in power to his own benefit," she said grimly. "But how did you come by this knowledge?"

Glancing at Kagome, Inuyasha cocked a dark brow. Kagome hesitated a moment before shrugging.

"I...saved a turtle?"

Kagura's eyes widened briefly before narrowing once more. She sighed.

"That does sound like the sort of lunacy that you would be involved in," she said. "So, then, I suppose the two of you have concocted some sort of grand plan to prevent this from happening?"

Kagome shrugged once more.

"It is far from grand," she said. "And likewise far from preventing it. We at least hope to delay it, though, and to buy ourselves some time to work out the rest."

Kagura considered this before nodding, no more than a slight inclination of her head.

"I suppose that is well enough for now," she said.

Kagome traded another look with Inuyasha, a question in both of their faces. There was something there, some unspoken word simmering just beneath the surface of what Kagura allowed them to hear. She had never made any secret of the fact that she had plans and interests all her own, but it was difficult not to be wary of that when she was taking so much care to make certain that she knew every move of theirs.

"You do not trust me," Kagura said, her words cutting across their silent communication. "And in that you do well. We are allies of convenience, and should our alliance become inconvenient I would not hesitate to sever is not yet the case, however, and so my vow that Naraku will know nothing of any of this continues to hold."

"Fine," Inuyasha said, unconsciously shifting so that Kagome was partially behind him. "But if you even look like you might-"

Kagura rolled her eyes.

"Save your threats, Tennō-sama," she said. "For I can assure you that whatever they might be, I have heard far worse. Your miko is safe from me. Be content with as much."

Kagome placed a gentle, restraining hand on his shoulder when it looked as if he might press the issue. He darted a glance at her, his look still sharp.

"Please leave it be, Tennō-sama," she said. "Kagura-sama is right. We all know as much as we can of where we stand right now. There's no help for it but to do what we intend to."

Inuyasha's lips curled downwards, a clear sign of his dissatisfaction. He said nothing, though, and that was as much as she could hope for at the moment. Reaching into her robes, Kagome pulled forth the scale that ningyō had given her. Kagura's gaze fixed upon it, her eyes widening faintly.

"Oh," she said, so softly that Kagome almost did not catch it.

Kagome moved toward the water walkway, Inuyasha dogging her heels and shooting Kagura a warning look. The youkai woman was unfazed, following behind them to observe Kagome.

Holding the scale cupped between both hands, Kagome hesitated. The ningyō had not exactly given her instructions on how to summon them back, merely giving her the scale and telling her that she could. Still, if she had not bothered to explain then it could not possibly be too complex a matter, right?

Closing her eyes, Kagome focused on the feel of the scale in her hands and fixed the image of the ningyō in her mind. The scale grew warm against her skin and instinctively she opened her hands, tossing it gently into the water.

It floated gently downward, landing petal-light on the surface of the water. Upon contact the color of the scale began to lighten, brightening to a radiant golden hue that spread out in ripples across the face of the pool.

From the center of the ripples emerged a dark head of slick, ink-black hair. Eyes broke the surface next, round and dark as a new moon and followed by an unsmiling mouth filled with small, sharp teeth. Kagome recognized her instantly as the same girl who had visited her the first time.

"You called?" she said, her tone as devoid of emotion as it had been the last time.

Kagome nodded, squatting down beneath the level of the railing to bring herself closer to the ningyō's eyeline.

"I did," she said. "Thank you for coming...uh, I am afraid I do not know your name. May I ask it?"

The ningyō cocked her hand faintly to one side as if the question struck her as odd. She blinked once slowly and Kagome caught the quick sheen of a second, transparent eyelid sliding over her eyes.

"It would be difficult to pronounce above water," she said. "Bubbles are needed."

"Oh," Kagome said, slightly thrown by this. "I could...try, if you like?"

Behind her she heard a simultaneous snort from Inuyasha and scoff from Kagura. She felt her cheeks pink faintly, mentally glaring at the both of them.

"You may call me Chōseki if you like," the ningyō said, unperturbed. "I have always enjoyed the sound of it on the lips of sailors and fishermen, and you will not drown in the attempt."

"Chōseki-sama it is, then," Kagome said. "Thank you for coming. I believe I have at last figured out the favor that I wish to ask of you."

Chōseki inclined her head faintly, but said nothing.

"The ship's flag that you gave me," Kagome continued. "I think I understand now what it means for us and we need your help in order to divert what could prove a disaster for us if left unchecked. I understand that there are limits to what you are willing to do and above all I have no wish to place any of you in harm's way, but I hope that we have worked out a way that you can aid us with little danger to yourselves."

Kagome took a breath, glancing back at Inuyasha. He nodded, sinking down to squat at her side.

"The plan would be that you attack only at night," he said. "Only when it's dark, only some of them, and nothing major. Piercing holes in the hulls, sinking a few if you can, stealing any of their catches or supplies you can get your hands on. You'd never let them see you and you'd never let them know it was you."

Chōseki eyed him, her gaze sharpening somewhat.

"The wakō are children of the sea almost as much as we are," she said. "They will not be long in figuring us out, and they will not be kind should they catch us."

Inuyasha inclined his head, silently conceding this.

"But they're human," he countered. "Maybe they know the sea and maybe they'll think it's you, but they'll never be able to move as fast as you in the water. As long as you play it smart, the chance of them catching any of you is small. Besides, you all have your own score to settle with the wakō, right?"

Kagome glanced at him, faintly surprised. If there was some sort of grudge between the ningyō and the wakō, it was nothing that she was aware of.

Chōseki cocked her head faintly to one side, doleful, dark eyes catching the light of the moon as she considered him.

"They have hunted us," she said softly. "Murdered us and sold our flesh to others humans who dreamed of living forever. They are not the only ones."

"But they're some of the worst, right?" Inuyasha countered. "My old man was the one who banned it in his lands and waters. Might not've stopped it, but he at least tried to slow it down."

Inwardly Kagome marveled at the obvious thought he had given to this argument. She was far more accustomed to seeing Inuyasha try to barrel through conversations with sheer force and little tact. But she supposed he was changing as much as anyone else. The thought inspired a strange mix of pride and uneasiness in her.

"That is true," Chōseki said, pulling her from that line of thought. "Your father counted us among his own and did what he could to protect us. For all of that, we will not be subject to the rules of this land or any other. We are not of it."

Inuyasha shook his head.

"This ain't about that," he said. "Subject or whatever, no one deserves what they did to you. If the Tennō should be anything, it should be a protector for anyone who needs it. I don't care what laws you wanna follow, I want to protect you the same way my old man did. But I need your help first. And you said you owed one to Kagome, so this is it. This is what we're asking. Take it or leave it, but know that we need your help now."

Chōseki's gaze swept from his face to hers, a question there.

"The Tennō-sama speaks for both of us," Kagome said. "This is the boon I would ask of you."

The ningyō was silent, her expression as still and smooth as quiet waters. Beneath the surface of the water Kagome caught the flash of the golden scales of her tail as it undulated in a rapid rhythm.

"I am inclined to grant this to you," she said at last. "But this is not wholly mine to give, miko. I must ask the others, as they must also risk themselves. I will bring the question of it to them. I will return when I have an answer for you."

Her hand emerged from the water, curling open to reveal another golden scale. She held it out to Kagome.

"Take it," she said. "When it is time I will use it to call you. If it cannot be done, it will be proof of another boon owed."

Nodding, Kagome took the scale from her.

"Thank you for hearing us out, Chōseki-sama," she said.

Chōseki nodded, but her gaze shifted to Inuyasha.

"I only saw him once and briefly, but you look like your father," she said.

Before the hanyou could react to her words, she was gone in the arch of a tail and the flash of golden scales.

Silence fell over the three in which Kagome quickly realized that her thighs were burning from sustaining the squat for far too long. Tucking the scale away into her robes, she reached up and took hold of the wooden railing to hoist herself back onto her feet. Inwardly she winced at the protesting of her muscles, watching with faint envy as Inuyasha rose beside her with seeming ease.

"I suppose that went as well as we could have hoped," she said. "Now we must wait to see what comes of it."

"Perhaps not," Kagura said, her look thoughtful.

She twisted her fan slowly between her hands, sliding it slowly open and closed as their gazes turned to her.

"What d'you mean?" Inuyasha said, a warning edge to the words.

"Simply that we continue to press what little advantage we have against Naraku," she said as lightly as if she were discussing the weather. "I believe that with a bit of artfully applied pressure we have a chance at forcing his hand, or at least of forcing him to give up some more of his secrets."

"What sort of pressure did you have in mind?" Kagome said, a finger of unease sliding the length of her spine.

"We need to show him what he wants," Kagura said. "Let him feel that he has won. Only then will he begin to let his guard slip."

"So what is it you want from us?" Inuyasha said bluntly, suspicion writ deep in the furrow of his brow.

Kagura leveled him with a sharp look, the corner of her lips curling in distaste at his manner.

"And here I thought that you might have finally grown some tact after managing to charm Kanna," she said, sliding her fan open in front of her mouth with a snap. "It seems, though, that there is no teaching an old dog new tricks. Still, I will thank you for your part in that. My sister can be quite intractable in her way, but she seems to have taken a liking to you...for reasons beyond my comprehension."

Inuyasha's scowl deepened.

"It wasn't for you," he said.

Kagura's brows rose, her gaze sliding to Kagome.

"Of that I am well aware," she said archly. "Still, whatever your reasons, it serves my purpose as well as I imagine it serves yours. Kanna can help us to show him some of what we wish him to see. He will trust his eyes, if nothing else. Byakuya will do the rest if we make certain that he sees what we need him to. Between the two of my siblings and my accounts, Naraku should have no cause to believe anything save what we tell him and what you show him."

"And what would you have us show him?" Kagome said, that same uneasy feeling still sitting deep in her gut.

Kagura's crimson lips curved into a grin that gleamed like freshly spilled blood.

"Your downfall," she said.


Kagome could only surmise that Hisana had no idea that she could see her expression reflected in the small mirror before her. Otherwise, she supposed, the older woman might have taken a little more care to disguise naked interest on display there as she eyed her.

Struggling against the urge to squirm beneath that probing gaze, Kagome wondered what in the world she could be searching for so intently in the back of her head or the line of her profile. It was Hisana's night to play handmaiden to her and thus far the two of them had gotten on quite well, chatting animatedly about the progress that had been made so far on the new Ministry branch and the Tennō's part in it. At this, though, Hisana had paused, something shifting in her face. She had grown first silent, then pensive, and now this.

"The Tennō-sama," she said, her voice so sudden and decisive that Kagome almost startled. "What are your thoughts on his Majesty?"

"My...thoughts?" Kagome said when she was able to gather enough of them to form a response. "Well...I think his Majesty a strong leader. Strong-willed, but willing to hear his people and-"

"No," Hisana said, shaking her head. "I mean, that is all well and good when addressing the court, O-Miko-sama, but it is not what I mean. What do you think of the Tennō-sama? Not as a leader, but as a man."

"A man?" Kagome echoed dumbly. "I don't...I do not…"

"Do not what?" Hisana said, one brow arching as she dropped both the section of Kagome's hair that she had been working at and all pretense. "Think of his Majesty as a man? Somehow that was not the impression I got at this afternoon's meal."

Kagome frowned, her mind reeling back to that afternoon's meal. Nothing of any particular import had happened at the meal as she recalled it, and certainly nothing to indicate any sort of impropriety between herself and Inuyasha. The meal itself had been good, the conversation between the men and women had flowed easily, and then she had said her farewells-

"Oh, you need not fret," said Hisana as if she could read the line of her thoughts. "It was merely an observation, just some small thing on my part. As you said your farewells, his Majesty's hand reached for yours and you made as if to pull back. You did not and he did not, but the glimpse of it struck me. From the little I have been allowed to observe, his Majesty is not a man to seek out contact with others. Rather, the Tennō-sama seems to avoid it whenever he can."

"Now you, on the other hand, O-Miko-sama, are all openness and touch, but not with his Majesty. With him you shy away, you avert your eyes and tuck away your hands. Again, merely small observations on my part, but they have led me to a question I cannot seem to shake: what do you think of the Tennō-sama?"

Kagome's mouth worked soundlessly as she attempted to form a response to this past the mild panic buzzing through her. She did not know Hisana well by any means, but she knew that she was of Sango's clan and that Sango trusted her. Certainly there did not seem to be any malice hidden within her questions, merely curiosity and a keen eye for observation. But why? Why turn that sharp gaze on herself and Inuyasha?

Shifting, Kagome turned to face the older woman fully.

"You have been watching us," she said, her eyes searching the other woman's.

Hisana inclined her head, not a hint of sheepishness in the admission. Her ochre eyes were warm as they met Kagome's.

"It has been some time since my last mission, but the training bred into the taiji-ya of my clan from birth is not easily forgotten," she said. "And a taiji-ya who cannot quickly take in and assess their surroundings is often a dead one, so yes, I have been watching you, though I assure you with no ill intent to it. It was difficult not to after the way that the spring ceremony was arranged."

The last was spoke with a knowing look, a quirk to the corner of Hisana's lips that spoke of some sort of shared secret. Kagome frowned.

"Arranged?" she echoed. "Was...was there something strange in the ceremony?"

None of the other women had mentioned anything and Kagome had been under the impression that the ceremony had gone off largely without a hitch. Had she missed something? Had there been some secret sentiment floating around that the appointees had not wished to tell her about?

By degrees the warm amusement in Hisana's expression slipped away until her frown almost matched Kagome's. Her head tilted faintly to one side, her eyes skimming the lines of Kagome's face several times as if there were a story written there that she might somehow decipher. After several moments her mouth fell open slightly, her eyes rounding.

"Oh," she said softly. "Oh. I see. That is it, then. It is him…"

Her brows knit together, her gaze sharpening as she raised it back to Kagome's face.

"But then the initial question must still stand," she said firmly. "What do you think of his Majesty as a man?"

"I…"

Kagome floundered, thrown by both the question and the rapidity of the noblewoman's shift. She was missing something or had missed something, that much was certain, but it was difficult beneath the weight of Hisana's pressing gaze to do more than respond.

"I think his Majesty a good man," she found herself saying, for lack of anything else to say.

Hisana's look did not ease.

"A good man?" she repeated, her eyes once more roving the planes of Kagome's face as if she could read some deep secret there

And suddenly Kagome has the mortifying suspicion that she could. She willed her expression to remain neutral even as she felt a flush creeping inexorably up her throat and into her cheeks.

Hisana smiled.

"A good man it is, then."


In the days following her conversation with Hisana something curious happened.

It was almost imperceptible at first, just a miniscule shift in the way that some of the women addressed her. Their bows were a fraction deeper than they had been before and their tones more deferential. But these were such small things that it was easy enough for Kagome to dismiss them.

It was not until the manner of all the women- save Kagura and Kanna who remained largely as they ever were- changed that Kagome was forced to wonder what was happening. When the women gathered in the En no Matsubara for an afternoon meal amidst the roots of the Goshinboku, Kagome decided to broach the subject with Katsumi.

At her question, Katsumi smiled in a way she had never seen her do when she had first entered the Dairi.

"Well," she said, her smile never fading as her dark gaze traced the twining branches of the Goshinboku overhead. "I imagine it must be different for each of us, but for me it is rather simple. I wish to return the favor."

The dappled light that filtered through the branches overhead cast dancing shadows across her fine features, making it almost impossible to read her expression. Her eyes were warm as they met Kagome's, though.

"By favor...do you mean the new Ministry branch?" Kagome said. "Because I assure you that that was his Majesty's doing far more than it was mine. And besides, it was no favor, but rather something that was long overdue-"

A gentle laugh cut her short. Katsumi's grin had deepened, though she had raised her fan up to obscure it.

"Pardon me, O-Miko-sama," she said. "It is only that I thought you might say as much. We thought that you might say as much. It is why we thought it might be best to do this on our own, quietly."

"Do what, Katsumi-sama?" Kagome pressed.

But Katsumi only shook her head, her fan now concealing entirely the lower half of her face.

"You need not worry, O-Miko-sama," she said. "Only know that just as you have told us to dream of lives that we had not imagined before, we want the same thing for you."


A couple of days later she received an unexpected summons to Inuyasha's chambers. The men and women had decided to visit the records room at the Chūwain to do some research on how to best structure the new Ministry branch and they assured her that they could all get on just fine while she and the Tennō attended whatever matters that they needed to.

Reluctantly Kagome agreed, a part of her having hoped to be able to aid them as they moved forward in the structuring of the new body. Ultimately, though, she supposed she would have to step back for the women and men to truly be able to take ownership of this. She might as well begin now.

When she arrived at Inuyasha's chambers she was redirected by a servant there to the gardens out behind his residence. She followed the woman, figuring that the day was such a nice one that Inuyasha could not stand to be long inside.

There was a pair of guards standing at the base of the small wooded hillock that the woman led her to. Kagome barely remembered to thank her as she bowed and departed, distracted by the familiarity of the place. It was the same small hill upon which she and Inuyasha had spent so much time practicing etiquette what now seemed a lifetime ago. From the base of the hill she could not see his figure, but she knew with a certainty that went beyond thought that he would be sitting in that same spot atop it waiting for her.

She bowed to the guards as they allowed her to pass, making her way up the hill to find it exactly as she had imagined. A light spring breeze tempered the warmth of the day, catching and twisting through long silver strands that seemed almost the color of light itself as they moved. An ear twitched toward the sound of her approach and then he was on his feet, golden eyes bright as they met hers.

A smile stretched the length of Kagome's face.

"Were you feeling nostalgic?" she teased lightly, gesturing towards the pond stretching out and away from their hillock.

Inuyasha's eyes followed her motion distractedly before he shook his head.

"Keh," he huffed, though the brightness of his expression did not dim even a fraction. "Shut up."

In a blink he had bridged the short distance between them and taken her in his arms. In another his lips were against hers, warm and grinning. Instinctively Kagome's hands fisted in the front of his haori, her eyes sliding closed as her mouth moved to meet his more firmly.

And then a chilling thought occurred to her. She tore her lips away with a gasp, pushing against his chest with both hands. He allowed her space, but his arms did not slacken around her.

"Inuyasha!" she hissed, flushing up to the tips of her ears. "The guards! We're outside-!"

"Doesn't matter," he said, the words almost a laugh. "Doesn't fucking matter. It worked, Kagome! They told me and it fucking worked!"

Kagome frowned, her eyes searching his face.

"You're not making any sense," she said, careful to keep her voice low lest she draw the attention of the guards. "What worked? Who told you what?"

His expression as she gazed up into it was radiant, triumphant. It was possibly the most handsome she had ever seen him look.

And then he spoke the words that made her feel as if she were suddenly tumbling upwards into an endless sky.

"They want you to be Empress."


Today's mini-history lesson:

-Katsumi: one of the ways that Katsumi can be written in kanji has the characters for "win/beauty" in it, thus her reference to what her parents named her

-Ministry of the Imperial Household: A real facet of the structure of the imperial court during the Heian period, though I obviously took my own liberties with it. It was built and focused around the running and regulation of the imperial household (the Tennō, the Empress, his secondary wives, mistresses, and their children among other matters). It was also the only branch I could find any record of that had women among it, though they were confined exclusively to the tending of the women who the Tennō was involved with and served primarily to keep other men away from them. Again, I took a good deal of my own liberties with the idea.

-Chōseki: can translate to "tide"

-"a good man": in Japanese the phrase is (roughly) "ii hito/ii otoko", meaning a good man or a good person, but "ii otoko/ii hito" was also used at one point as a sort of short-hand or understated way of saying that the person was a potential boyfriend or lover without having to come out and just say it. This is the idea I was kind of playing around with in the scene between Hisana and Kagome, though it's doubtful that the phrase had that same implication during the Heian period.

Thank you all for reading and I hope that you enjoyed it! Please shoot me a PM or a message on tumblr if you have any questions or anything! Also apologies for this chapter taking a bit to get done. It was a hectic holiday season and all of your support through it was greatly appreciated!

Also, if you happen to be looking for more ways to interact with or support me or this story, visit me on tumblr at eien_no_basho ! Any and all support is always greatly appreciated!

Also also, it just so happens to be my birthday on the day of publishing this chapter, so consider it my reverse birthday gift to you all!